While the clockmaker went to work threading the wire through some kind of piping about the contraption’s nose, Alexia climbed inside. Only to discover, to her abject embarrassment, that the nappy seat design caused one’s skirts to hike up into one’s armpits and one’s legs to dangle below the enormous wings of the aircraft with bloomers exposed for all the world to see. They were her best bloomers, thank goodness, red flannel with three layers of lace at the hem, but still not a garment a lady ought to show to anyone except her maid or her husband, a pox on him, anyway.
Floote settled comfortably in behind her, and Madame Lefoux slid into the pilot’s nappy. Monsieur Trouvé returned to the engine, situated behind Floote and under the tail of the craft, and cranked it up once more. The ornithopter wiggled, but then held steady and stabilized. Victory to the bustle, thought Alexia.
The clockmaker stepped back, looking pleased with himself.
“Are you not coming with us?” Alexia felt a strange kind of panic.
Gustave Trouvé shook his head. “Glide as much as you can, Genevieve, and you should be able to make it to Nice.” He had to yell in order to be heard over the grumbling engine. He passed Madame Lefoux a pair of magnification goggles and a long scarf, which she used to wrap about her face, neck, and top hat.
Alexia, clutching parasol and dispatch case firmly to her ample chest, prepared for the worst.
“That far?” Madame Lefoux did not raise her head, busy checking on an array of dials and bobbing valves. “You have made modifications, Gustave.”
The clockmaker winked.
Madame Lefoux looked at him suspiciously and then gave a curt nod.
Monsieur Trouvé marched back around to the rear of the ornithopter and spun up a guidance propeller attached to the steam engine.
Madame Lefoux pressed some kind of button and, with a massive whoosh, the wings of the craft began flapping up and down with amazing strength. “You have made modifications!”
The ornithopter jerked into the air with a burst of power.
“Didn’t I tell you?” Monsieur Trouvé was grinning like a little boy. He had a good pair of lungs in that wide chest of his, so he continued to yell after them. “I replaced our original model with one of Eugène’s bourdon tubes, activated by gunpowder charges. I did say I had taken a keen interest recently.”
“What? Gunpowder!”
The clockmaker waved at them cheerfully as they flapped upward and forward, now a good few yards above the rooftop. Alexia could see much of Paris laid out below her wildly waving kid boots.
Monsieur Trouvé bracketed his mouth with his hands. “I’ll send your things on to the Florence dirigible station.”
A great crash sounded, and two of the vampires burst out onto the roof.
Monsieur Trouvé’s grin vanished into the depths of his impressive beard, and he turned to face the supernatural threat.
One of the vampires leapt up after them, hands stretched to grab. He got close enough for Alexia to see that he had an impressive collection of jagged bite marks now about his head and neck. His hand just missed Alexia’s ankle. A huge white beast appeared behind him. Limping and bleeding, the creature charged the airborne vampire, hamstringing him and bringing him back to the rooftop with a crash.
The clockmaker yelled in fear.
Madame Lefoux did something to the controls, and the ornithopter flapped two mighty strokes and surged up. Then it shifted suddenly sideways in a gust of wind, tilting precariously. Alexia lost sight of the action on the rooftop behind one massive wing. It was presently to become irrelevant, for the ornithopter reached ever greater heights, and Paris became lost under a layer of cloud.
“Magnifique!” yelled Madame Lefoux into the wind.
Sooner than Alexia would have believed possible, they attained the first of the aether atmospheres, the breezes there cool and slightly tingly against Alexia’s inexcusably indecent legs. The ornithopter caught one of the southeasterly currents and began to ride it with, blessedly, a long smooth glide and much less flapping.
Professor Lyall had plenty he ought to be doing that night: BUR investigations, pack business, and Madame Lefoux’s contrivance chamber to check up on. Naturally, he ended up doing none of those things. Because what he really wanted to find out was the current location of one Lord Akeldama vampire, fashion icon, and very stylish thorn in everyone’s side.
The thing about Lord Akeldama was and in Lyall’s experience, there was always a thing that where he himself was not a fixture, his drones were. Despite supernatural speed and flawless taste in neckwear, Lord Akeldama could not, in fact, attend every social event of note every single evening. But he did seem to have a collection of drones and associates of drones who could and did. The thing that was bothering Lyall at the moment was that they weren’t. Not only was the vampire himself missing, but so were all of his drones, assorted sycophants, and poodle fakers. Usually, any major social event in London could be relied upon to temporarily house some young dandy whose collar points were too high, mannerisms too elegant, and interest too keen to adequately complement his otherwise frivolous appearance. These ubiquitous young men, regardless of how silly they might act, how much gambling they might engage in, and how much fine champagne they might swill, reported back to their master with such an immense amount of information as to put any of Her Majesty’s espionage operations to shame.
And they had all vanished.
Professor Lyall couldn’t identify most of them by face or name, but as he made the rounds of London’s various routs, card parties, and gentleman’s clubs that evening, he became painfully aware of their collective absence. He himself was welcome at most establishments but was not expected, for he was thought to be rather shy. Yet he was familiar enough with high society to mark the difference one vampire’s disappearance had wrought. His carefully polite inquiries yielded up neither destination nor explanation. So it was that, in the end, he left the drawing rooms of the wealthy and headed down toward dockside and the blood brothels.
“You new, gov’na? Like a li’le sip, would ya? Only cost ya a penny.” The young man propping up the shadows of a scummy brick wall was pale and drawn. The dirty scarf wrapped around his neck no doubt already covered a goodly number of bite marks.
“Looks like you’ve given enough already.”
“Not a chance of it.” The blood whore’s dirty face split with a sudden smile, brown with rotting teeth. He was of the type vampires rather crudely referred to as snacky bites.
Professor Lyall bared his own teeth at the youngster, showing the boy that he did not, in fact, have the requisite fangs for the job.
“Ah, right you are, gov. No offense meant.”
“None taken. There is a penny for you, however, if you provide me with some information.”
The young man’s pale face became still and drawn. “I don’t grass, gov.”
“I do not require the names of your clientele. I am looking for a man, a vampire. Name of Akeldama.”
The blood whore straightened away from the wall. “Won’t find ’im ’ere, gov; ’e’s got enough of ’is own ta slurp from.”
“Yes, I am well aware of that fact. But I am wondering if you might know his current whereabouts.”
The man bit his lip.
Professor Lyall handed him a penny. There weren’t a lot of vampires in London, and blood whores, who made it their livelihood to service them, tended to know a good deal about the local hives and loners as a matter of survival.
The lip was nibbled on slightly more.
Professor Lyall handed him another penny.
“Word on the street is ’e’s left town.”
“Go on.”
“An’ how. Didn’t suss a master could be mobile like that.”
Professor Lyall frowned. “Any idea as to where?”
A shake of the head was all Lyall got in answer.
“Or why?”
Another shake.
“One more penny if you can direct me to someone who does.”
“Ya ain’t gunna like me answer, gov.”
Professor Lyall handed him another copper.
The blood whore shrugged. “You’d be wantin’ the other queen, then.”
Professor Lyall groaned inwardly. Of course it would turn out to be a matter of internal vampire politics. “Countess Nadasdy?”